Just back from my annual foray to the London Book Fair. When I say annual, I mean that in the sense that this was the first time I’d ever been. So not really annual, but the potential is there.

From this position of virginal visitation, it was impossible to tell what effect worldwide economic devastation is having on the business. Perhaps the fetid scent of suppressed desperation which hung sadly in the air like the gnarled aroma of an actress as she fades into obscurity, is always present. Maybe people are always desperate at the London Book Fair. Maybe no one was desperate and the fetid scent of desperation was just me.

I walked around not talking to anyone. I had three appointments in three days, unlike the agents and commissioning editors who have three appointments every thirty seconds or so, and who dash around in a frantic rush, talking about money and the next big thing and the new Dan Brown. There’s a skill to walking casually up to a book stand and making conversation with someone you’ve never met before. Some people have that skill; and some people are completely incapable of opening their mouths and letting a coherent thought cross the threshold. I’m the poster child for the latter collective.

I’m contemplating exhibiting next year. I have a vision of a bright and shiny Barney Thomson stand, sparsely but elegantly furnished, and in the middle of the stand, a bespoke fountain, with blood continually running from a pair of scissors. And in this vision, the agents and the commissioning editors and rights dealers of the London Book Fair are so fascinated by the fountain, because there’s never been a blood spewing fountain at the London Book Fair before, that they are forming an orderly but excitable queue halfway around Earl’s Court, crying things like, Good God, this is amazing! Let me give you huge amounts of money! while others shout No! No! Take my money, not his! His is tainted by the blight of tv celebrity biographies!

I didn’t see anyone famous except Boris Johnson, and I’m not entirely sure that he counts. We arrived at Earl’s Court on Wednesday morning at the same time, and were within two yards of each other. I suddenly had the thought of reaching into my bag and thrusting a copy of Lost in Juarez into hands, but before I could reach into my bag the moment had passed and he was gone. Which was probably just as well, as had his security detail noticed a shifty Scotsman reaching into a bag as he walked quickly up towards Boris, I would likely have been gunned down in a brief but bloody hail of bullets.

I had a drink with three crime critics one evening. (That would be critics of crime novels, as opposed to critics of actual crime. Here, you, what kind of way is that to beat someone up? Do it like this...) I probably didn’t make a great job of selling myself. (See above.) I also had to explain that I never read crime novels, and this seemed to cause some surprise. Attempting to show that I could actually read, I said to one of them that I was currently in the middle of Bulgakov’s Russian classic The Master & Margarita. The woman then started talking strangely. Well, the individual words made sense, but collectively they seemed to be on a totally different subject matter.

About half a minute in I suddenly realised that she’d thought I’d explained away my not reading crime novels as a result of the fact that I was doing a Masters in something or other. I sat in horror as she talked gravely about the difficulty of combining studying for a degree with a full-time job. It was too late to interrupt and correct her, so I sat there, my pint of Strongbow warming gently in my hand, as I contemplated the awful moment that would come when she asked me what it was I was studying. And there and then I decided that it was too late to tell the truth and that it would have to be Mathematics. She spoke for another couple of minutes, and when she finally finished her tale of having to combine work/study, and just before she could ask the inevitable question about my studying subject matter, I suddenly shouted credit crunch! by way of a subject change, and the conversation headed dramatically off in another direction.

I returned to the Book Fair the next day, and continued my peregrination from the stands abuzz with frenzied commissioning editors, to the one-book stands with old women doing Sudoku and showing no pretence at frenzy. There was a live cooking stand. Chefs were doing live cooking for an audience. I’ve never been to a live cooking event before. Apart from in my kitchen every night. I mean, I’ve never watched someone cook for entertainment. There was a character called Tom Kime who might well be famous, but I wouldn’t know. He cooked Afghan food. Then there was a Swiss bloke who didn’t seem to realise that he should be talking to the audience. Maybe it was just some guy making his own lunch.

To further avoid engaging with anyone, I sat in on a couple of lectures on the forthcoming ebook tsunami that will sweep hardbacks and paperbacks into oblivion. Everyone in publishing is talking about the coming ebook phenomenon and how all publishers are going to have to get ready for it. The London Book Fair gave the ebook concept its full respect, by siting the digital area at the farthest corner of Earls Court 2 and providing enough seating for six men and a dog.

In the end I spent most of my time in the cafeteria upstairs. In fact, the check-out guys saw so much of me that one of them asked me to be best man at his wedding next week, and another made me godfather to his second child.

And then, as soon as it had all begun, the London Book Fair was over, and we could all go scurrying back to our offices, licking our wounds and thanking God that it’s done for another year. Perhaps me and my bespoke blood-spewing fountain will be there next year and perhaps we won’t. Or perhaps I should just cut to the chase and set up a stall full-time in the cafeteria.

I could sell food. 

# 1 Both The Da Vinci Code and The Last Fish Supper are absurdly ludicrous pieces of fiction with no basis in reality. Only one of the two books realises it’s an absurdly ludicrous piece of fiction with no basis in reality.

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Next week, Reason #2...